Security experts are advising flyers not to throw out their boarding passes or post pictures of it online as your boarding pass, even after your flight, can land you into a lot of trouble, if it lands in the hands of a hacker who can easily gain access to your personal information via the boarding pass bar code.
According to krebsonsecurity.com, the bar code on a boarding pass holds your private information, including who you are, what your phone number is, what your email id is, and even your home address. So when you throw your used boarding pass away, you not only put yourself in danger of having your critical information stolen, but also in a possible risk of identity fraud.
FYI: there is a website that can help you decode your boarding pass bar code with precision.
The next time you’re thinking of throwing away a used boarding pass with a barcode on it, consider tossing the boarding pass into a document shredder instead. Two-dimensional barcodes and QR codes can hold a great deal of information, and the codes printed on airline boarding passes may allow someone to discover more about you, your future travel plans, and your frequent flyer account.
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How about those bar-coded strips they fasten around your luggage handle?
Anything you even remotely suspect might have any sort of personal information on it, tear it up before trowing it in the trash or recycling.